My thoughts as to why the GOP/Romney lost

Well obviously we’ve covered all the main reasons as to why the GOP did miserably this election which is mainly their absolute disdain towards women and minorities. But there were many other reasons that added to the failure.

1. Obviously Mitt Romney was a poor choice of a candidate for President and that impacted many elections downstream in regards to the voting outcome. Let’s face it, anyone who could have given Obama a run for his money (ie Christie, Rubio and Jeb Bush) and instead figured they’d run in 2016 when the ticket will be wide open. The Tea Party tried to find a candidate to run for president but one by one each one of those crazies out-crazied themselves and fell out of the race for another crazy to give it a try. In the end the party had to settle with Mitt Romney, who had strong support of the non-political junkie voters (ie the average voter who doesn’t spend all day posting on the internet) and in the end when you vote ‘Anyone but….’ You end up with a losing ticket.

2. The GOP gave-up on stretching the truth and decided to go with out-n-out blatant lying. Let’s face it – both campaigns will resort to stretching the truth in a way that makes them look good and their opponent look bad. But all the election I’ve watched I’ve never seen it this bad and you couldn’t even call it ‘stretching the truth’. I think the Jeep/China ad that Romney ran in Ohio pretty much sealed the deal for Obama in that state. The ad wasn’t even close to ‘stretching the truth’ but ended up pulling lies out of nowhere and trying to make it somewhat believable for the voters. The voters saw right thru the lie and honestly, I think they were downright offended beyond offended. If Romney never ran that ad in Ohio I think he may have come in a lot closer to winning that state (or outright winning it).

3. Showing just how unpresidential one can be during a time of great crisis. Whether it was pissing on the graves of the dead right after the Benghazi incident or making lame attempts to collect canned goods for a massive storm, Romney never once showed any signs of being presidential when he should have. It was bad enough that Romney turned the Libya incident political so quickly after it happened but then he tried to use it again against Obama during the 2nd debate. I don’t think in the 30+ years of watching presidential debates have I ever seen a moderator step in and actually correct someone.
As for Hurricane Sandy, there was only so much Romney could have done in the aftermath especially since the states affected were all solid blue. However the ONE thing that Mitt Romney could have done was show some support to Chris Christie, who was the first major GOPer to endorse Romney in the primaries. Instead Romney did nothing and allowed Faux News and the right-wing pundits to jump all over Gov Christie trying to pin the blame on him for Romney’s failure to win the election. Had Romney said something profound like ‘I just want to let my good friend Gov Christie know we are here for him to help him get his state back on his feet’ would have shown leadership in Romney and possibly not have totally alienate Christie but instead he stayed silent and allowed the right-wing to mercilessly attack Christie.

My final comments are this - the election was NEVER close, not even after that first debate. The media kept touting these national polls as their reasons to claim 'the election is close' but we don't elect presidents by national popularity votes (which btw Obama would have won that way too). Since I started checking EV.Com, not once since Mitt was picked as the nominee had Obama EVER gone below 270 votes. You don't consistantly poll that well day in and day out and then lose on election day. Nate Silvers knew that which is why he gave Obama a 92% chance of re-election, slightly lower than my 99.9999999% chance I gave Obama!

2. True but being the sane one pretty much doomed you in that race

3. Good analysis, but I think we're all leaving out one important thing.

How many times in the last 100 years has the sitting President been voted out of office?

Carter doesn't count because not only was he dealing with a poor economy and the Iranian crisis he was stabbed in the back and further wounded by Ted Kennedy in the primaries. Face it, Romney is no Reagan, and he wasn't all that well liked by his own party.

Bush Sr. was really just the 3rd term of Reagan and it's unusual for a VP to get elected in the 1st place. The country was ready for a change of parties.

Every election predictor was wrong, except one: Incumbents usually win.

4. They lack a party structure

There are large states like California with almost no organization for Republicans. Into this void you have competing billionaires basically buying spots onto the GOP ticket for either themselves or their hand picked candidate.

We can laugh at Romney 2016 but seriously he bought his way into the primary and he could again. He almost did it in 2008. McCain beat him with almost not structure or money, but when he reached the general election he once again had no structure so no chance to compete in many states.

The Republicans are still strong on a regional basis and clearly winning in 2010 helped them save safe districts for them in many states, but as a national party they appear very injured. It is unclear that their pulling billionaire forces can focus together to build ground level national support. Instead it is very likely a Libertarian or other candidate could actually pull heavily from the party in 2016. If you look at California or New York it isn't impossible for the GOP to win big blue state offices like mayor of New York or Governor of California but the kind of candidate that does that is generally rich, famous and well... Mitt Romney. Their alternative is people that appeal to their billionaire constituents and they tend to be very eccentric people.

The larger question is: does it matter. Post win we are already talking about What Obama will do in Syria and Iran and the Fiscal Cliff. The GOP might be losing a lot of elections, but they still control messaging in the country and that means the liberal agenda many vote for is ignored in popular conversation

8. Romney has never been well-liked as a candidate

2008 was an open year for election since there was no incumbant and it's always easier for a party to switch who runs the White House during an election where there is no incumbant. YOu're right that McCain had little structure during his primaries; however, McCain had one thing that Romney can't buy and that's Respect & Likeability. In the end that appealled the most to the non-political junkie voters (Ie everyday voters who don't spend all their time talking and posting about politics).

2016 will be another open election because Biden is just going to be way too old to run at that point (he'll be older than what McCAin was when he ran for office). And finally when is the last time that a person who lost the presidential election ran again and won? I think Nixon was the last one. But with today's superhighway of instantaneous news, Romeny is now labeled a loser and I doubt we'll see him run again.

9. The question will be who can out spend Romney?

Sure if one of the billionaire's that pointlessly backed Newt or Santorum picked a real candidate they could compete... but how much. Romney is willing to sink 27-40 million into his primary fight. Can a Rubio or Portman draw on that kind of money. OK a guy like Bloomberg can. They hated Romney and wanted anyone but him and he still won because he out spent them and buried them with negative ads. Romney will be 69 and has nothing else to do in his life. He has more money than he can possibly spend. If he wants to run, no one can stop him from doing so. To beat them they will likely have to beat him with a crap load of money. I agree I don't see another McCain in the congress that has the gravitas to just win with shoestrings. The Santorums, Ryans and Huckabees that appeal to your Billionaires just don't appear to carry any real primary weight.

Once again don't underestimate the lack of party structure in the GOP for their loss. It is a divided party with strong regional support, but it is also a party that disappears on the west coast and is losing ground on the southern east coast. It is a party who's internal polling was close to delusional. If they lose Texas and 4-12 years what will be left? Sure they have the money to build a huge party apparatus but as we found unlimited money was not a huge gain for them. Why? Well it turned out not every billionaire wanted the same thing. They all want to be the king maker with their king in charge. Without a strong national RNC to steer these people to one person like happened with Bush... I'm expecting another round of Highlander politics.